Risk factors for dental caries and severe periodontitis in Korean adults: analysis with the 2016-2018 Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey data / 대한구강보건학회지

ABSTRACT

Objectives@#The purpose of this study was to analyze the risk factors for dental caries and severe periodontitis using the data from the 7th Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (KNHANES) for improving the lifestyle risk assessment and oral health education in national adult dental examination program. @*Methods@#The participants included 7,301 adults aged 19-59 years for dental caries analysis and 4,886 adults aged 40-59 years for severe periodontitis analysis. Self-care of oral hygiene (brushing teeth frequency, brushing teeth before bed, use of interdental brush or floss), sugar intake, and smoking were selected as risk factors related to oral health. The other risk factors included sociodemographic characteristics (age, gender, region, household income, education), dental care utilization (dental examination, unmet dental needs), and systematic diseases (hypertension, diabetes, high cholesterol). The association between the target diseases and risk factors was analyzed using a complex samples logistic regression model. @*Results@#Dental caries was negatively associated with brushing teeth frequency, interdental brushing or flossing, sugar intake, and age; and positively associated with smoking and oral examination. Severe periodontitis was positively associated with smoking, diabetes, age, and region (eup/myeon). Gender (male), household income (low), and unmet dental care (yes) were positively associated with dental caries or severe periodontitis. @*Conclusions@#It was possible to obtain evidence of lifestyle factors (self-care oral hygiene, sugar intake, smoking) affecting the target disease (dental caries or periodontal disease) for the national adult dental examination program. However, there were limitations in estimating causality as this was a cross-sectional study, and the explanatory power of the risk model was low. Therefore, it is necessary to conduct a cohort study of the adult dental examination program to obtain a higher level of evidence on the risk factors of the target diseases.